In the field of hypodermic syringes the original syringes were made from glass formed into a liquid holding cartridge with the needle attached. These syringes were provided with a fluid ejecting rod which was withdrawn from the bottom surface to fill the syringe or moved toward the bottom for ejecting the fluid. This filling and emptying of the syringe being performed by the user. In sterile applications disposable syringes of similar configurations were developed so that after use the syringes were discarded. A further development in the syringe field was to have the disposable syringes prefilled. These syringes consisted of the same elements as the syringes described above but in many cases made of plastic to reduce cost. The fluids were packaged under sterile packaging conditions in factories and/or drug laboratories. Since many fluids that are used in hypodermic syringes attack many materials including plastics, further developments were made to the prefilled disposable syringe which required the fluid chamber to be made from inert material such as glass. In order to use glass in this application contouring of the glass at both ends became a necessity. Since contouring of glass to close tolerances is a very expensive operation and since close tolerances are a requirement in high production filling operations, the use of contoured glass is a limiting factor in the ability to meet present and projected production requirements. As a result, it is highly desirable to eliminate the contouring of the glass and instead use a straight glass tube, since this the least expensive form for this glass item. It is also desirable to have the glass tube cut by standard production techniques rather than having to lap or grind each end of the glass to exacting requirements. The other components of the syringe can be manufactured from low cost materials and processes such as plastics and metal stamping since these components do not come in contact with the fluids used in the syringe. The front and rear seal of the syringe can still be made of rubber as is standard in existing prefilled syringes.
Since the use of prefilled disposable syringes is growing rapidly, it is important that the cost of the syringe is as low as possible, that the reliability of the syringe is as high as possible, and that the components used to make up the overall syringe are capable of being handled on high speed production equipment. It is also important that the syringe be tamper proof and easily activated. Since certain uses of syringes requires large volume of fluid, many of the existing prefilled syringes are getting large and cumbersome to handle and store as well as being difficult to activate. As a result, storage and shipping form factors of the syringe becomes important due to existing storage area confines. Syringes in use today do not meet all of these requirements.